I Thought I Knew How to Write a Book

I thought writing a book would mostly be about getting the ideas out of my head and onto the page.

I was wrong.

In Part 1A of this special Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy series, I’m taking you inside the writing journey behind The Retail Leader Paradox.

No polished author story. No pretending I had the process figured out.

I talk about where I overestimated myself, where I underestimated myself, why sharing stories that didn't make me look great became necessary, and the part of the book I resisted writing altogether.

My writing coach told me this process should extract every emotion, regret, success, and loss.

She was right.

This episode is about what I thought writing this book would be and what the process began demanding from me instead.

The Retail Leader Paradox is coming Spring 2027.

Learn more:
www.theretailleaderparadox.com
worthyretail.com/now

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:50

Welcome to Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy, where we go well beyond the corporate playbook to unpack major opportunities, hidden challenges, and critical issues that senior retail leaders face every day. So let's get started right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Welcome. Welcome to a very, very special edition of Retail Leadership with Steve Worthy. And uh it is a very special uh episode, actually, a series of episodes. Over the last year, dare I say year and a half, almost two now, I have been in the process of uh writing a book. Probably about four years ago. I I started the journey of writing one particular book, and it was called The Approachable Retail Leader. And I have a framework and everything for that. That book is going to be coming out soon, but this is not that's not the book I want to talk about. There has been another uh book that is sort of a prequel, actually, to The Approachable Retail Leader. I'm not going to get into the title just yet. Actually, you know what? I will tell you the title. The name of the book is called The Retail Leader Paradox. What I wanted to do in a three-part series is that I want to I want to talk about the book writing process. I will talk about the book in due course, right? That's probably gonna be another series of of podcast episodes. But I wanted to talk about the book writing process as a leader, as someone who's been in leadership over 35 years. And why did I decide to do this? Why did I decide? Write a book, they say. Um, it'll be easy, they say. Everybody has a book, they say. And uh yeah, and a lot of people do have a book. This book writing process has been exactly that. It has been a process, it has been something that I never thought that I would actually do. Um, for those who those of you who know me, I have my older older brother Stan. He's the oldest, I'm the youngest. So Stan is really the writer in the family. I have never been, you know, um the book writer per se. Um I remember when I I first started my my news, the our newsletter, um, Retail Leadership, a worthy retail leadership. And the crux of my writing up until that point had been a lot of business writing, whether it was grad school writing and grad school reports, business reports, a lot of data and a lot of jargon within the retail or project management space and a lot of that, not so much the actual writing. There's a there's a massive, massive difference. And I learned a lot about that from um my my writing coach. And I'll talk about her as well and the role she's had to play in that. So there are three parts to this series. The first part is is entitled What I Thought This Would Be, meaning the book writing process. Um, part two is gonna be what the book exposed. And then part three is gonna be what I know now. I wanted to break it down in that way just because I think it's it'll it'll help you understand my thought process, but it will also help you if you are thinking about writing a book. It will help you when you think about any big project that you're thinking about undertaking, right? It will help you sort of uh map out the the journey and how you feel emotionally. My writing coach told me, oh, told me the process should extract every emotion, regret, success, and loss. You should feel vulnerable in a way like never before. I could probably stop the episode right there. I'm gonna read it to you one more time because if you plan to go down this route, this is what you should expect. Um, my writing coach told me the process should extract every emotion, regret, success, and loss. Um, you should feel vulnerable in ways like you have never been before. You can add a whole bunch of other emotions in there. Fear, um, exposed, insignificant, um, not enough. You you can you can put in almost any emotion that the human goes through when you are thinking about writing a book and when you actually start the process. So I want to talk a little bit about, I have some questions here that I'm just going to ask myself. I think that's the easiest way to do this. So the um once again, we are on part one. What I thought this process would be. So, question number one What did I think writing a book would be like before I actually started? Great question, Steve. Uh what did I think the book writing process would be like before I actually started? I thought about the book writing process very similar to when I actually read a book. So I read a book with a very um focused intent and purpose to get something out of it. I don't do a lot of, and especially right now, I don't really do a lot of uh leisure reading. I should, but I did a lot of that, you know, early on in my career. And so when I thought about the book writing process, I thought about the fact that I need to probably write in the same way that um I read. Get that. Get that. I thought that I was going to have to write with the same way and format and ideas in which I read a book. I didn't realize that there was so much more to the process. When you are reading a book, you are immersed in the story. You are probably looking for solutions and ideas, and um and a lot of these things, you don't you don't think about it. Really great writers have a way of transporting you into the story, and you uncover different things about uh characters, even about yourself as you're reading the book. I didn't necessarily think that deeply about the writing process, to be very honest with you. I thought it was gonna be very similar to how I write my newsletter. I didn't think about it in that in that depth and breadth of context before I started. I said, well, this is gonna be easy. I'm just gonna tell people what the ideas are, and that's it, and explain it, give them some ideas, give them some solutions, some things to work through, and then boom, bada bing, bada boom, it's a it's a done deal. That's really what I thought um of the process before I started. So, question number two. What part of this process surprised me the most? Um I had to get over, I had to get over sharing stories that didn't make me look great. Yeah. I um initially, every time I wrote a different part of this book, different chapters, each one of these chapters have a um have a story about myself. It doesn't really follow me, there follows a character, but there are initial aspects of of my leadership journey at the beginning of these chapters, and then we move into the the actual character who helps flesh out the ideas even more so than than than my journey probably could have. And so I was very surprised that that the that as I was writing, I really started to share ideas and situations and even behaviors that didn't make me look so great. That but but but I knew a lot of leaders, every leader goes through. And a lot of them don't want to talk about it, a lot of them don't want to say it out loud. And so that's probably the one that's been one of the biggest things that has surprised me about the process. The the depth of storytelling that needed to take place. Well, this probably goes into number three. Question number three says, where did I where did I overestimate myself in this process? That's a good question. Where did I overestimate myself in the process? I think I overestimated my ability to write. I really did. I mean, I didn't think it was gonna be that hard. And that's not being that it's not from a pompous perspective. It's from a, well, I I I I you know, I I I write um, you know, posts, I write newsletters, and you know, um, I write reports. I, you know, I just can't be that much different, it can't be that much, you know, different, right? It is it is night and day. It is night and day. And and I and please understand, I'm not saying any of this stuff to scare you in the process. This is my own journey. And I'm I hope you are able to get something out of this. And you you you're also getting a glimpse into um the process. So when you read the book, if you listen to this, if you if you listen to this um these this podcast series, you're gonna get a really good perspective as you're reading the book of what my thought process was and how I felt when I was writing different aspects of this book. So um I am not saying any of this stuff to um shame anybody or to um make you feel bad if you want to write a book or to try to make this more difficult. But um, it is a difficult process. I'm not gonna sit here and say, oh my gosh, it's gonna be so easy for you to be fine. It it is a tough process. So number four, where did I underestimate myself? I think this is the point that I was trying to make earlier. The the depth that I was able to go to. So did the first manuscript, rough draft, outline, rough draft. Then I wrote the first manuscript, and uh I got a um, I was like, this is okay, this is this is okay, this is good. And then I got a uh developmental editor to help me. Um that has been helping me with this, with the I'm I'm on the second round of second versions, um, second revisions. And so what I realized was that my rough draft and my manuscript, you know, I was telling, right? Just as I said earlier, I was just telling. And I I was very quick to get to the point. I was very quick to get to the solution or the idea, the core idea. And what I realized when I was doing was that I was giving away the farm. I was giving away too much. What I've learned in this process is that you have to keep the reader reading. I mean, I I thought about it from my own perspective when I found a book that I really loved. I mean, I couldn't put it down, right? It was just, you know, that phrase, a page turner. And that has stuck with me and continues to stick with me as I go through this editing, editing process. I haven't even gone through the the copy or line editing perspective yet. That's gonna be another two, three months, you know, process, maybe more. Uh I'm still working through the developmental side of things. I'll give you a great example. Um, my writing coach has been doing this for a while. My brother, who's a writer, he's um he's read a few chapters. My executive coach, he's read some stuff. And uh I it was the email from my uh writing coach, uh Sandra. And it was like chapters one and two, and I wrote those, and this was after like two sessions of us from a developmental editing standpoint. It was just like a rough sessions because rough for me because she was just very, very um plain in where I needed to go. And it was rough for me because I was like, oh man, this is all new to me, and I gotta figure this thing out. And so I really, I really took my time to go back through chapters one and two, and she sent me an email, and it said, uh, Steve, I don't like, I don't like these um these chapters. You know, I don't like your revisions. And it was like there was like the uh a long, and then it was like a whole bunch of blank space after that. And she said, I love them. And I was just like, oh, thank you, God. I was like, oh, thank you. Thank you, God. It was like, you know, you know, um getting getting a um uh a verbal you got this type of deal. And I feel like I knew I was under something. I knew I was under something once she she gave me that vote of confidence. And um, yeah, so there you go. So question number five. Oh, what chapter or idea fought me the most? Oh wow. What chapter or idea fought me the most? So the book is broken down into um three parts per se. There is there are the issues, I'm gonna give them away too much. There are the issues that the leaders go through, myself and the the main character. Then there is part two, and uh I will just say that that part, no, excuse me, that part, yeah, part, no, there's there's part one of the book, chapter one and two, then there's part um part two, which is the ideas and issues that the uh leaders go through, that I go through and I talk about. And then part three is um the consequences of those of those issues. And then part four is what we entitle the shifts. These are the things that as a leader, if you are focusing in on these things, they will help you deal with each one of these areas. And it's not a checks and balancing, it's not a checklist thing. It is like if you are implementing these ideas and these shifts, these perspectives, uh, you're able to self-identify a lot quicker. And I think the the consequences part fought me the most because, you know, initially I was like, I don't want to make people feel bad about dealing with these things, right? I don't want to make the leaders like, oh my, you know, feel like they're beating themselves up and like, oh man. So I fought against adding that part. And I think my coach was like, no, you don't need to put you need to go and put that in there. And as I was continuing to go through this, I realized that that is what I was fighting against. The consequences. One of the biggest issues that we have right now in leadership is that no one wants to talk about the consequences of our actions or of anything that we do. There are consequences to them. And we we we can't we can't lead without them. We can't lead without the consequences, right? That that that literally just came to me as I was thinking, as we were talking through this. You can't lead without consequences. There are things that are that are gonna be inevitable. There are gonna be decisions that you make that are just absolutely wrong. And there are consequences to that, right? And so I think we have to, we have to live with those those situations. Because if we don't, wow, we are um, who are we as a leader? What type of accountability and credibility and character do we have if we don't understand and realize that there will be consequences to our actions one way or the other? So I think that was that has probably been the biggest part of the of the book initially that I fought against was adding that. And um I'm glad I did because I think it's a very uh I think it's a very poignant part of the book. And I I think a lot of leaders are gonna see themselves in those consequences or they're gonna need to see themselves um, you know, um dealing with some of these consequences that they, that they've um um that are results for some of their um some of their behaviors or some of the things that they've gone through. Well, thank you so much for joining this episode. The book is still being written, but the conversation has already started. If there was something, if there's something small in this episode, something big in this episode that made you think differently about your own leadership, that's important. And I want you to stay connected to the journey. So make sure you visit the Retail LeaderParadox.com to learn more about the book. You can join our wait list and and also follow what comes next. Because here's the thing sometimes the issue is not that you've stopped leading, it is that the way you have always led may no longer be enough. So thank you for joining us. Have a great day and God bless.